


My Heart Is Mute

by SovaySovay



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Family Dinner, M/M, Second Person Present Tense, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2452106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SovaySovay/pseuds/SovaySovay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock examines the fragile relationships of John's family over dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Heart Is Mute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Those two or three of you who I told about this fic beforehand](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Those+two+or+three+of+you+who+I+told+about+this+fic+beforehand).



_As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences._

You do not belong here. Sitting straight-backed in a chair at a dining table. This is uncomfortable, this is wrong, and you make a mental note to sulk for hours at home, however it will annoy John most. You use your fork to pick at your food, like a child. Bored, so bored. The chatter around the room isn’t worth listening to, the people aren’t worth examining. John and Harry and their parents and aunts and uncles. Why are you even here? John said...something. Something about Harry wanting to meet you after reading the blog. You begin thinking of escape routes. You could excuse yourself, get Mycroft or Lestrade to call and claim it was an emergency, leave in a whirlwind of mystery (on your part) and confusion (on the Watsons’ part). You’re not willing to ask Mycroft’s help, so Lestrade it is.

As if he read your thoughts (and he may be able to do so by now), John gives your shin a sharp kick under the table. You can hear his voice in your head: _don’t even think about it_. So you fold your feet under your chair and look around at the people instead. John’s father is boring. Traditional. John told you once his father was in the military as well, and you can see the same bearing as your friend in Mr Watson. The same pursed lip, the same creased frown. John’s father is no longer quite so boring. You begin reading all of the similarities between the two. Hand gestures, sarcastic smiles, sighs, they even eat the same way (looking at the plate and not at others around the table). Enough of that. You switch your focus to Mrs Watson.

John’s mother laughs more than his father. She smiles less sarcastically, and you can see from the small imperfections and the dents in her fingers that many of John’s jumpers were knitted by this woman. She jokes with her family, but when her gaze turns on her children there is a glint of something unpleasant. Harry is uncomfortable, and you have seen why. Mrs Watson has not spoken a word to her daughter all evening. She has talked to John, but monosyllabically and coldly, too. There’s a twitch to her smile, giving away her desire to be anywhere else but this table. You can sympathise, but you have different reasons.

Harry. Harry is quite interesting. John is protective of his sister, is wary of her old habits, alternately defends and reprimands her the way he acts with you. Even her water glass is moved slightly farther out of her reach, as if any kind of liquid consumption could cause a relapse. But no, you’re trying to analyze Harriet Watson, not her interactions with her brother. Nothing about her betrays her addiction, but you know from previous cases that addicts are good at hiding it. Even to your eyes. And you’re thinking maybe she’s--

‘Sherlock, dear, how are you for food?’

You awaken from your meditative state to Mrs Watson’s voice. She’s holding a bowl of potatoes up to your eyes and has the same flinty look in her own. You force (what looks like to her) a genuine smile and gently press the bowl back onto the table.

‘No, I’m fine.’

Why are you being nice to these people? Any of them could be a client, for God’s sake. Mr Watson could come tomorrow to ask where the family heirloom went (he thinks he misplaced it; he couldn’t be more wrong). His wife could pull you aside with a query about what’s happened to darling Harriet (nothing’s happened, she’s just gay). Harry herself could be wondering about the creepy man who moved in across from her flat and only leaves after Harry’s left (you know he’s there because Mycroft told you about the operative he placed there to make sure nobody else was keeping an eye on John’s sister). John?

John _looks_  content. He smiles with his father, he pokes fun at his sister, he tries in vain to speak to his mother, he’s friendly with his relatives. You know, though. You remember hearing him pacing in the bedroom this afternoon while you were lying on the couch in a dreamlike state, hearing the things he said to himself:

‘It’s just a family gathering.’

‘God, John, it’s just the people you’ve known your entire life.’

‘Oh God, John, it’s the people you’ve known your entire life.’

‘Fuck, _fuck_ , maybe we just shouldn’t go.’

Then shouted out the door to you: ‘Sherlock, we aren’t going tonight!’

You made no reply, he knew your silence meant you had no complaint with not meeting his family.

Ten minutes later: ‘Sherlock, I’ve changed my mind, get some nice clothes on, we’re going in a half hour.’

John, who has been silently worrying about this night since he got the email from his parents on Sunday. It’s not so visible, only revealed in lights turning on when only you and the streetlights are awake and him sitting on the couch rifling through old family photos and letters with his head in his hands. He did this Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Monday you heard him. On Thursday you opened the door to your room and watched him sigh and crumple and uncrumple papers. Last night, Saturday, you opened the door all the way and stood next to him.

‘Should my family cause me this much stress?’ he asked once he noticed you were there.

‘Well, I don’t see why, they don’t pose a threat.’ You were joking, or trying to, but John took the comment seriously.

‘Don’t they? Your family’s fine, isn’t it? Seeing them doesn’t stress you out.’

You didn’t bother to dignify the blatant attempt to learn what you were feeling. Instead you swept a letter (four years old) out of the crate and read it to yourself. It was dull, idle chitchat from Harry, simply an update on how she was (‘met this nice girl named Clara, will tell you more when more happens’), wondering where John was and how he was (‘you dead yet, soldier boy?’), and an assurance to what must have been an admonishment in John’s absent letter not to party too much (‘come on, John, it isn’t like it’ll _kill_ me to have a bit of fun, even if that’s your experience’). You threw the letter back in the box and flung yourself down on the sofa, twitching and writhing your leg in just the right (wrong) way to get John to move to a chair.

You could hear him whispering to himself the words of the next letter.

‘John?’ you breathed without moving the rest of your body, not even your hand lying over your eyes.

‘Yeah?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Will you read silently, or am I going back to bed?’

‘Hm? No, sorry, Sherlock, I’ll read quieter.’

You two stayed in that same attitude until John had exhausted his twine-tied folders of correspondence, and tumbled from his chair to his bed upstairs, not bothering to shut his door. You opened your eyes for the first time in hours and padded silently up the staircase, just to gaze through the door and make sure he was, in fact, going to be all right. You closed his door and went to your room, to sleep until you were woken by John telling you that you weren’t going, or you were, or something.

But that’s not important now. You’re trying to decipher the fragile relationships around the table in front of you. Mrs Watson’s white knuckles on the edge of the table as her gazes passes over Harry. Harry’s foot tap-tap-tapping on the ground rapidly as she takes a drink of her water, setting it closer to her every time. The look Mr Watson gives his wife across the table, the look that says _I love you, but you’re being slightly awful._ The absolute boredom you’re feeling, to the point where you begin actually thinking up crimes and solving them in your head. Suddenly you realize that you do not notice John’s uncle (George or something) ask you to remind him what it is you do for a living, do not notice Harry reach across the table for her mother’s hand, do not notice Mrs Watson draw her hand away quickly, do not notice Mr Watson put his head in his hands at his wife’s gesture, you even forget about the case in your head.

You do not notice these things because John is very like his father. Because they have the same mannerisms, the same actions, the same expressions. Because the look Mr Watson gave Mrs Watson moments (or hours?) before ( _I love you but you’re being slightly awful_ ), you’re realizing now, is precisely the look you have seen on John Watson’s face countless times since you met him. A look directed at _you_. You waste away the rest of the evening in silence until you and John get in the car and drive to the flat, no word spoken between you.

That night, John reads over the letters one final time. You follow him out again, and lie on the sofa, but don’t push him out of the way. Tonight you bring your knees to your chin to give John the space he needs, the space he deserves, and breathe out a low breath as you lift your arm from under your head and reach it across the couch to where he is. Absentmindedly, John takes your hand and holds it. Neither of you says a word. You are lying bent-backed on the sofa at home, John’s hand in yours, this is comfortable, this is right, you are not sulking. You belong here.


End file.
